On Parenting and Growing Pains

They say life moves in seasons

In chapters 

In acts 

One flowing into the next

However it sees fit 

But I can see the coming shift in lockstep with the changing of the leaves that brighten the sky

The weight that has made its home in the crook of my arm

In the unnatural stretch of my tendons 

In the kink of my vertebrae

Whose wriggling for greater autonomy has left me stronger in some ways

Weaker in others

She has planted her feet firmly, flatly and walked

I didn’t teach this skill

I didn’t have to

And as I feel the rise and fall of her sleeping weight against my chest

I am alight with the glow of nostalgia already

Here, heavy on me

Dreaming against me of all the places her small feet will take her 

Of all the things she will do

Supporting her own weight as she does them

I feel the flickering orange ache of my shoulder

And I relish it before it enters a season of healing